Crocus Technology  

Milpitas,  CA 
United States
https://www.crocus-technology.com

• Booth: 1213

Come Find Out How We Are Advancing Intelligence in Sensing

Crocus Technology is a global leader in providing advanced TMR sensor technology solutions to leading designers and manufacturers of industrial, automotive and consumer electronics.

Crocus Technology has developed and patented its advanced XtremeSense(R) TMR technology (Tunnel Magneto-Resistance) to provide superior magnetic sensing performance for use in many applications. The advanced XtremeSense TMR technology enables high magnetic sensitivity, stable performance over temperature, low noise and low power consumption which allows it to be used in a broad spectrum of applications. TMR sensors can replace many Hall Effect sensors with increased performance and cost savings.

TMR is based on different physics phenomena. The magnetoresistance effect is the property of a device to change its electrical resistance value under the influence of an external magnetic field, therefore allowing enhanced electrical detection of magnetic fields in various applications.

Founded in 2006, we are a privately held, VC backed company.  We are headquartered in Milpitas, California, with R&D office in Grenoble, France.

https://crocus-technology.com/

Brands: XtremeSense Advancing Intelligence in Sensing

 Press Releases

• Crocus Technology Enhances Accuracy of Energy Metering Solutions (Jun 24, 2022)

  Crocus Technology Enhances Accuracy of Energy Metering Solutions

  TMR Sensor Reference Design with Digital Output Simplifies Implementation

  Milpitas, CA, May. 24, 2022 -- Crocus Technology Inc., developer of XtremeSense® TMR sensors, today announced the release of a high accuracy energy metering solution with isolated current sensing and a digital output.  The solution is capable of measuring power, voltage and current while providing 1,820 V_PK isolation in AC or DC applications.  The result is a smaller and more efficient design without the use of large current transformers.  The solution is ideal for a range of smart devices such as power supply monitors, electric vehicle chargers, household appliances, motor control and smart lighting.

  The solution consists of the Crocus’ CT430 TMR isolated current sensor, Microchip’s ATtiny426 microcontroller, Printed Circuit Board (PCB), design files, microcontroller firmware, Bill of Materials (BoM) list, user guide and relevant support for designing a fully functional power monitoring solution.  The design solution has been verified to accurately read and quantize the voltage and current values prior to calculating the instantaneous and Root Mean Square (RMS) power components, active and reactive power, as well as power factor. These power values are stored in registers which can be accessed by an external microcontroller via the SPI interface. By offloading the design effort of measuring and calculating power, the Crocus metering solution simplifies the addition of metering capabilities to any smart device.

  The key to precise power measurements is the CT430 current sensor which provides better than 1% current measurement accuracy over the -40°C to +125°C operating range.  It is available in a small 16-lead SOIC-Wide package, eliminating the need for bulky current transformers and allowing for more compact designs. The CT430 solution can also be customized with different bus interfaces such as I2C, SENT and CAN. By leveraging the solution, manufacturers and designers can quickly develop accurate and compact power monitoring capabilities for their products. See the figure below for the system diagram of the Crocus reference design kit for power measurements.

  "Being able to accurately measure power and communicate this data within a system continues to be a challenge for designers." said Tim Kaske Crocus Vice President, Sales & Marketing. “The Crocus solution with the CT430 current sensor provides improved accuracy over existing magnetic sensor based designs.  With a validated design solution and a 12-week lead-time, OEM design customers are able to quickly integrate the energy metering solution into their end products.”

  Design files required for manufacturing or customizing this power meter PCB are available for download. https://crocus-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Power-Meter-v0.1.zip

  Also available for download is the AN136 CT430 Power Measurement Module user guide, https://www.crocus-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/AN136-CT430-Power-Measurement-Module-Rev0.0.pdf. 

• Crocus Delivers the Future of High Precision, High Current Contactless Isolated Current Sense (Jun 24, 2022)

  Crocus Delivers the Future of High Precision, High Current Contactless Isolated Current Sense

  The CT45x showcases the advantages of TMR sensors to rethink and simplify solutions in the high precision, high current application space

  Milpitas, California, May 23, 2022 – Crocus Technology Inc., the leading supplier of disruptive TMR (Tunnel Magneto-Resistance) XtremeSense® sensors, today announced the CT45x family of contactless isolated current sensors to enable high precision and high current measurements in a more simplified solution.  Unlike existing solutions, the CT45x allows manufacturers to eliminate costly shields, concentrators or cores. The CT452 and CT453 offers contactless 0.7% accuracy, 1 MHz bandwidth, and better than -50 dB immunity to external magnetic fields without additional mechanical components.  This combination of performance and accuracy enables customers to reduce their overall product size and weight which enables them to replace large and costly current sense modules with a small and simple solution. 

  As current requirements have been increasing so have the challenges of accurately measuring high currents, typically >200 A and often up to 2,000 A.  Shunt resistors with isolated amplifiers are broadly used but present an issue with I²R losses and tend to be large and costly.  Existing magnetic based solutions like Hall Effect and AMR are less accurate and have high temperature drift.  The CT45x products are based on XtremeSense TMR technology delivers the future with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) contactless approach which can scale with the system requirements, high bandwidth and fast response time, common-model field rejection, combined with high accuracy measurements over temperature. 

  In addition, many applications now require very accurate current measurements in the milliamp range up to the 1,000 A range or more.  Often this type of solution involves multiple current sensors to achieve the desired system performance with many design compromises and complexities.  Using Crocus’ XtremeSense TMR current sensors allows for a no-compromise and simple solution using a single CT45x sensor which provides a large dynamic range and a high SNR.  For example, the CT45x is able to measure down to 500 mA resolution and up to 1,800 A while maintaining better than 0.7% accuracy. 

  The CT45x offers groundbreaking noise performance, as low as 0.55 mV_RMS, to enable applications to sense small current levels and small changes or variations in current through a busbar.  This performance is almost 10 times better than existing Hall Effect solutions.  This results in a SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) as high as 77 dB for the CT45x measurement which allows the system to process higher resolution data with higher accuracy. 

  “With the introduction of the CT45x family of contactless current sense products, we now have a complete portfolio of products for our customers from small currents to larger currents.”  States Zack Deiri, President and CEO of Crocus Technology.  “This product based on Crocus’ cutting-edge TMR technology is the most exciting for us as the benefits of our XtremeSense TMR are addressing the needs of higher current applications that can’t be met with existing solutions without compromises. Crocus is excited to be addressing new high current markets such as BMS, Inverters, DC/DC Converter and many others.” 

  Product features and performance:

  CT450 & CT452 (5 V version) & CT453 (3.3 V version)

  Isolated Contactless Current Sensor

  Capable of measuring currents from 5 mA to >2,000 A

  Total output error ±0.7% Full-Scale

  300 ns response time, 1 MHz bandwidth

  Available in six different configured field ranges

  Protection capability with Over Field Detection (OFD)

  Integrated Common Mode Field Rejection (CMFR) with >90% immunity (CT452/3)

  Uniform magnetic field sensing (CT450)

  Targeting applications in EV Chargers, Battery Management Systems (BMS), DC/DC Converters, 48-V system, Bidirectional Charging and AC/DC Inverters. 

  The CT450 is available in SOIC-8 package.  The CT452/3 are available in SOIC-8 and TSSOP-8 package

  For more information, please visit the product webpage:

  CT450 https://crocus-technology.com/products/ct450/ 

  CT452 https://crocus-technology.com/products/ct452/ 

  CT453 https://crocus-technology.com/products/ct453/

 Products